Homeless Talk Citichat 19 April 2002

CITICHAT 15/2002 19 April 2002


HOMELESS TALK

In early 1994Dr Beyers Naude wrote an editorial for the first ever edition of the street newspaper “Homeless Talk” in which he said "Yet another feature of all the injustices and imbalances in today's South Africa is "homelessness". What a terrible word and what a horrible situation to find oneself in! For most? many? South Africans it is inconceivable to comprehend what it really means not to have a home, no regular income, no place for your personal belongings and nowhere to return to. It means feelings of fear, uncertainty, frustration and aggressiveness and even hatred in our community. The fact that there are people living in streets, railway stations and parks in our city is unforgivable"

Earlier this week I bought the April 2002 issue of “Homeless Talk” and was amazed to see “Eighth Anniversary” headlining the front page. I couldn’t really believe that it was eight years ago that I sat down with two inner city pastors, Diane Wicks, of St George’s United Church and Judy Bassingthwaighte of the Central Methodist Mission to talk about establishing an employment generating project for the homeless community in the inner city. The meeting had been facilitated by a young man on our CJP staff, Tudor Maxwell, who shared a passion with the two pastors for helping the indigent. Tudor left us some years later to do his MBA and, although he is now a lecturer at the Wits Graduate School of Business, has never lost that passion.

If I remember correctly I had just returned from a visit to the USA to investigate the role that their Business Improvement District initiatives were playing relative to urban social issues and homelessness in particular. A day spent with a young man working for the Grand Central Partnership in New York City had greatly excited me. I had no sooner told him what the objective of my visit was when he cut in and suggested that if we were going to make any progress, the first thing I should do was to stop classifying people as ‘homeless’. He objected strongly to what he considered was a negative classification and a stigmatisation of a sector of society. “There is no such thing as homelessness”, he said, “just unemployed people and those suffering from some dependency or mental illness.” ”Put your energies into resolving those issues and you’ll lick the problem you call homelessness!”

We spent the day visiting projects that his organisation had instituted in support of just such an approach. I was shown a housing project where ‘homeless’ people were provided with accommodation whilst they were taught a skill. A “roofgardens in the sky” project where they were taught to grow herbs for sale to the large restaurant population of the city using the roofs of high rise buildings as their gardens. I remember being particularly impressed with a programme that had been established to overcome the reluctance of organisations to employ ‘street people’. The Grand Central Partnership would provide them with training and would advertise their availability on an internal NYC TV channel. The trained person, neatly attired for the occasion would be filmed saying; “My name is XYZ and I have been trained as a waiter, I am ABC old and am particularly looking for employment in a restaurant/hotel/whatever.” The take up rate had been phenomenal! Had they stood before the same camera and said “My name is XYZ and I am homeless and am looking for a job as a waiter” the response would have been zilch!

I shared this approach with the two pastors and it struck a chord of great excitement. Diane Wicks, an American, had been wanting to establish a street newspaper for some time and it fitted this employment generation concept perfectly. And so "Homeless Talk" was born. The CJP carried out a research programme to determine existing skills amongst the homeless communities that existed at that time in the Inner City and from which potential contributors and workers could be identified. We provided accommodation for the newspaper in our Carlton Centre offices and the paper's first employee, discovered through the research project, was Mike Smith. Mike had worked for one of the fast food chains but had been retrenched and found himself living on the streets, sleeping at Park Station. . He was computer literate and so was able to pull the copy together and became the editor. A poem that he wrote, entitled 'The Newcomer' was published in the very first edition and included the following;

"In time he'll appreciate the value of a piece of cardboard and plastic

He'll know that cardboard can be as good

as any slumberland mattress;

he'll know that a rubbish bag can turn

to be an electric blanket

in times of need and distress.

He'll know that a railway trolley can serve

the same purpose as a double bed;

he'll appreciate the comfort and comradeship

offered by bodies packed in sleep like logs

for extra warmth and security."

The first editorial board consisted of Judy and Diane, Tudor, Mike Smith and three other homeless community representatives, Ebrahim Modimokwane, Josias Moloi, and Cassius Plaaitjes. (the April 2002 Eighth Anniversary issue carries a picture on the front page of Mike Smith and Cassius Plaaitjes.) The editorial policy was that 85% of each publication had to emanate from the homeless communities themselves. In the very first copy, simply marked Vol 1, 1994, Diane wrote the opening editorial which included the following; "Homeless Talk provides an opportunity for homeless people to express themselves by writing stories about their experiences, concerns and hopes." We sold the paper to identified homeless persons for 20 cents and they sold it to the public for R1.00. The

10 000 copies of the first edition sold out in a couple of weeks and a reprint of twice that amount followed. R24000-00 had been generated into the hands and pockets of the unemployed!

Nearly two years down the track we felt that it was time for the paper to become independent of us and so the now three full time staff, Mike Smith (Editor), Cassius Plaaitjes (Distribution) and Lance Mosterd (Administrator) moved to Zambezi House and, in 1996, to Longsbank in Bree Street. By now the publication had moved from bi-monthly to monthly.

And now the passage of the street newspaper developed much as a switchback ride through success, fraud, resilience, murder, embezzlement, recovery, disappointments and more successes, a kaleidoscopic storyboard which would do justice to any soap opera! The detailed history is contained in this April’s publication but it is worth recording just some of the highlights over the past few years. A number of professional journalists over the years have run writer's workshops thus acting as midwives to emerging writers from the community; the paper published a collection of poetry by homeless community writers called Pulse; Homeless Talk writers assisted in developing scripts for SABC TV and co-directed a TV documentary "The Streets are Death Row"; in 1999 a group of Homeless Talk writers published a book about life on the streets of Johannesburg entitled “Finding Mr Mandini”; this year Radio 94.7 raised R89000-00 to establish a creche for vendors’ children who can now leave their children under supervision whilst they sell the paper on the streets.

Today Homeless Talk provides a monthly income for more than 400 registered vendors with a monthly circulation of 35000.It has two editors, Harrison Ndlovu and Cascarino Valentine and a Board of nine. The CJP relationship has been maintained through one of our directors, Lillian Mvumvu, serving on the Homeless Talk Board in a non-executive capacity. Against the dark background of homelessness and illegal occupations in the city that I shared last week, Homeless Talk is a beacon of light and proof of just what can be done. Happy anniversary and many, many more!



Neil Fraser